


ghosts ii

by eraserheadbaby



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, fake memories, inspired by the a2-kaine parallels from the stage play, lunar tear galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 11:22:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19106095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eraserheadbaby/pseuds/eraserheadbaby
Summary: A2 visits the place of memories.





	ghosts ii

"Good morning, A2."

It's the robotic voice that drags her out of her sleep first, its echo orotund as it crashes against the rocky walls. Then, it's the scratch of the coarse, chapped wood on her back.

When A2 finally opens her eyes, she's immediately met with the metal junk known as Pod 042. God, it was worse than a tick. Her annoyance, though, only lingers until she sits up from the bench she'd laid on and takes a rapid view of her surroundings.

"Where am I? And why was I asleep in the first place?"

"This place is related to the lifeform known as Emil. Unit A2 accessed it by the elevator key included in the inventory provided by Unit 2B. Unit A2 then proceeded to spend more than 10 minutes in an immobile state, which initiated the Sleep Mode of the internal functions."

"What the hell?". So, apparently she found this random key, and just ended up in Emil's cave, or whatever? The Pod has to be making shit up. In a hurry to leave, A2 starts rising from the bench.

But her heated step falters as she gets a more definite picture of the place around her. In an instant, A2 feels powerless, only able to sit down and lock her gaze in front of her.

The flowers- a boundless sea of them, a feast of white that seemed to breathe purity into the condensed air of the cave. The petals positively glowed, yet their light seemed humble, casting a soothing, almost anodyne-like film upon the eyes.

A2 can remember this beauty being right at her fingertips, can almost sense the tender stem of the flower caress her palm. A name breezes through her mind, as if wandering around the wires hidden beneath her ceramic skin. Lunar Tear- this lovely flower is the Lunar Tear.

The name comes as a memory of a word uttered in a flood of green. A farm, quiet, desolate, its stream of grass only paused by a small cottage and the occasional animal. There, A2 recalls meeting the Lunar Tear for the first time. Her grandmother, a slight grin gracing her lips, gifts her a whole lei composed of the rare flower. A2 quizzically tilts her head, asks her how she even got her hands on something like this. Grandma only says that "she has her ways", her tone the least bit mischievous.

A2's hand, as if powered by the memory, blindly seeks the lei- around her neck, in the crevices of the wooden kiosk where she'd just fallen asleep.

The Lunar Tear lei in nowhere to be seen. It's like a brusque shove that throws her back into the bottomless well of reality.

There's no lei. There's no farm.There's no Grandma. It's all nothing but data installed on A2's memory circuit, remnants left inside old archives, the crumbs of humanity's sumptuous meals. No less artificial than any of her limbs, or any of the algorithms constituting her intelligence.

A2 has accepted this since day one- when she was still Number 2, even before she set foot on Earth for the first time. That's why she's always treated the memories as something foreign, a lot like the viruses androids contracted from time to time. The only memories she could call hers are the ones given shape during the time she spent with her fallen comrades.

And yet, A2 is chased by a reluctance to let the fake memories go. It's painful to admit, but their fabricated cocoon tucks her in a feeling she can only call peace. Maybe, like this, she can also explain her weird reaction to this cave- it pulled the trigger of her dormant memories, and A2 indulged so much in them, in the serenity that they brought in their wake, that her functions shut down. She fell asleep- an action more than unnecessary for any android.

If she wastes any more time here, it'll happen again. A2 needs to leave, so she finally sits up from the bench. On her way out, she walks around the corners of the cave, where no flowers grew. She just can't bring herself to trample all over the field of Lunar Tears- it feels like the dirt from the city ruins, the machine oil under her boots would sully the pristine image of her fake memories.

But maybe, by leaving this place, she could also leave the memories and their harmonious plasticity.

While she's in the elevator, running away from the cave, A2 searches through 2B's inventory again. Finding a single Lunar Tear, she digs it through her synthetic tresses. If she had to break the vow of leaving the memories for good, she figures she could at least do it with something as harmless as a hair accessory.

It's then that Pod 042 decides to speak up again.

“Query: why would Unit A2 decide to use this unnecessary equipment?”

A2 can't even muster the energy to tell him to shut up. And so, the rumble of the moving elevator is the only thing breaking the silence.

**Author's Note:**

> will i ever write anything besides shitty boring drabbles where nothing happens? the world may never know


End file.
